Some of this is already done. For one thing, it's a way to spread funding around. I have a friend who was a higher-up at a Federal agency that had its offices i

Some of this is already done. For one thing, it's a way to spread funding around. I have a friend who was a higher-up at a Federal agency that had its offices in Ohio. There are state colleges and universities all over the place, and public school teachers are government employees. Hospitals get a lot of public funding. And of course, military facilities. Possibly part of the envy is the disparity in wage visibility. Nobody knows how much people make in the private sector, whereas government salaries are a matter of public record, and can seem high relative to a sub-living-wage job, while also having "cadillac" benefits, reasonable job security, and comfortable working conditions. I've read (and probably seen) that there are large regions of the Midwest where the only towns with any appreciable prosperity either have a college or a hospital, or both.